


body and soul

by onlypartly (foreverkneeld)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, D/s, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Period-Typical Slavery, don cherry sucks in every universe, eagle of the ninth - freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-07-20 13:31:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16138259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreverkneeld/pseuds/onlypartly
Summary: Aleksandre Ovechkin is commander of Isca Dumnoniorum - until he is injured in the line of duty and reduced to being paraded around as proof that the wild Maygar can be tamed by Rome. Lars Nicklas Backstrom is a gladiator in a run down Circus in Calleva - due to be executed for flaunting the rules of the arena. It's a match made in Roman Britain.





	body and soul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kleinergruenerkaktus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleinergruenerkaktus/gifts).



> thank you to the mods for putting all of this together! to my recipient - i super hope u like it!  
> warnings in general for: slavery, insinuated non-con sexual relations as a result of slavery, period typical violence, and off-screen character deaths (no main characters).

Sasha kneels, stone cool and smooth beneath him. He has only a short time before Orlov and Zhenya come looking for him and they start the long march to Isca Dumnoniorum, but even as little countenance as Sasha gives to Roman superstitions, even he would not set off on such a march without first asking Dzewa to bless his steps.

He nudges the bread and honey a little closer to the small flame he managed to coax to life and settles back on his heels. His mother always spoke of Dzewa as Rod-Rozanica, in some ways both god and goddess, but Sasha has always felt their presence like he used to feel his sister’s. Fond exasperation, for the most part. And so he calls them Dzewa – young lady, and asks their blessing for the march; that he might arrive with all his men hale of heart and body and that the command of the fort might go well. A large request, for he well knows Roman centurions still look askance on Slav legionaries, much less one who wears the centurion’s crest.

He has fought his way to his rank through bloody conflict and brutal clashes and lost – far, far too many good men along the way. He knows he is something of a legend, even among those fair tribunes who would scorn to even notice his existence, knows that his tendency to throw himself body first into any engagement has been deemed foolhardy at best and self destructive at worst, but not even the most soft-handed tribune can deny the results.

And, Sasha thinks to himself with a bitter smile, touching the carved words on the altar one last time, now, when he feels himself growing old, joints beginning to groan at hot and cold alike and grey beginning to show in his beard and hair, _now_ do they give him command of a border fort.

“Sasha!”

Zhenya’s voice, from the entrance of the small cave, the two sets of footsteps confirming that he has Dimitri in tow.

“I come,” he calls back, brief. He bows his head once more and leans forward, blowing out the candle and rising, biting back a curse as his knees protest. Ai, he is old indeed, and made to feel older still as he comes forward and sees the bright, youthful faces smiling at him.

“A fort along the wall!” Dimitri says, as he has said at least once a day since Sasha received his marching orders. “A worthy command at last, капитан.”

Sasha tilts his hand back and forth, an imaginary weight set upon it. “We will see, Dima. It may be we will arrive and they take one look at you and refuse to allow us into the fort for fear your good looks will overwhelm them and leave it vulnerable to the Picts.”

“Or perhaps run screaming from the sight of your mouthful of broken teeth,” Dima laughs, and Zhenya shakes head at them both.

“Come, the both of you, else Reirdan will give the best of the supplies to Geno’s troop and we’ll have naught but dried meat and cram.”

___

Isca Dumnoniorum looms ahead of them, barely visible through the dust stirred by a full cohort making its way up the road. Sasha tilts his head up, taking in the place that will be his home for however long Rome decrees. He realises he is viewing the place with more of a proprietary air than is perhaps due, given that the transfer of command has not yet taken place, but he dismisses this. Has he not earned his place here, in command of this garrison and the surrounding land?

As they march through the small cluster of houses that have sprung up underneath the shadow of the fort, Sasha’s gaze is caught and held by one woman who stands at the entrance of her hut, a little one tumbling about in the dust at her feet, and the way she meets his eyes with no trace of the fear or subjugation he was assured all the local tribes felt when faced with the might of Rome. It is only when the babe at her feet breaks into a toddling run towards them, no doubt attracted by the flash of sunlight off of their helms, that her expression changes from mild disdain to terrified apprehension.

Sasha barks a swift command, and as his men come to an obedient halt, he crouches to meet the little one, doffing his helm and smiling as gently as he can with his hair and beard filled with dust from the trek and a gap in his smile where a Magyar got in a lucky blow. “Hello,” he says in his clumsy Latin. “You too small to be run so fast, Принцесса. Look, you worry your mother.”

Undeterred, the girl reaches out and very carefully touches the plume on his helm.

“Is bright, I know.” Sasha shifts on his heels as a shadow falls over them, glancing up to see the child’s mother there, pulling the girl away despite her protesting whines.

“I am sorry, Centurion,” she says, low voice steady despite the trembling of her hands on her daughter’s soft arms. “Please, she was only –”

Sasha stands, smiling in what he hopes is a reassuring way and knows is most likely just as terrifying to her as the cohort of men standing patiently waiting for the word to march again. “Is no problem,” he says, cursing his lack of her language and too-small grasp of Latin, “Is – nice, some people not scared of us.” He fishes in his pocket, pulling out a handful of sesterces and handing the brightest one to the little one. “For good girl,” he tells her, smiling once more and settling his helm back on his head, raising a hand to his men and giving the word to resume their march.

He doesn’t look back as they approach the gate and Zhenya, at his side, answers the guard’s challenge and the gates are opened for him, but if he had he would have seen the woman, child on her hip, still standing to one side of the path, watching him thoughtfully.

____

The current Centurion greets Sasha with only a kind of weary resignation, which is far better than the open hostility or thinly veiled disdain he often gets from men whose very bearing screams ‘Rome’.

“It is a quiet enough place, save once or twice a year when they have their festivals – and then you must be on the look-out, for the wildmen that pass for priests among the tribespeople will stir them into a frenzy, and the man who shared meat with you one day may well be trying to slit your throat the next.” Centurion Flavius steps into a small room, gesturing Sasha inside.

From the small table and armor stand that occupy the room alongside the bed and washstand, Sasha supposes these will be his new quarters for the foreseeable future, and his supposition is confirmed when Centurion Flavius sits heavily onto the bed, open hands making Sasha free of the room.

“The quartermaster’s room is larger, but these were closer to the bathhouse. If you would prefer, you can of course trade back, but I find this works well.”

“Always better to be clean, yes.” Sasha smiles. “This room is good.”

“Good.”

There’s a short silence, and then the Centurion says, “Save if you have further questions for me, I will take my cohort with no further delay. We have a long road to Rome.”

“Of course.” Sasha holds out a hand, clasping the other’s outstretched arm in a firm grip. “Safe journey to you and gods guard your steps.”

____

All Roman forts are so much the same that it is only the very small things that set this one apart from any of the others Sasha has fought from the past decade and more.

A hawthorn tree, growing twisted at one corner of the bathhouse, planted or seeded carelessly enough that it must strain to reach any sunlight. The usual collection of crudely drawn and more crudely meant words and pictures on the bathhouse walls – words that, for once, Sasha has no trouble translating despite the Latin. These are the first words a soldier learns, no matter his origins.

And the little girl and her mother, from his first day. Dima and Zhenya may tease him for how often he spends his free evenings meekly acquiescing to the little one’s demands for rides on his back or requests for a handful of the red feathers from his plume but Sasha waves them aside.

The woman’s man is gone, killed in a raid five summers ago, and they live off of their goat and small flock of chickens and the coin Tola earns by her work with herbs, healing what she may and growing herbs for the settlement’s physic.

And if Sasha sometimes will go hunting and leave for them a brace of pheasants or a rabbit, is he not the Centurion? Cwen is too small by far, and despite her spirit Sasha worries for her health when the northern winds begin to blow.

True to Centurion Aurilius’s word, it is a quiet posting. The most action they see is a small band of brigands that are easily dispatched with no losses on their end and only flesh wounds to Marc and Zoya that the fort’s physic assures him will be healed in less than a fortnight’s time.

Sasha is left with plenty of time to spend hunting or bathing or playing at dice with Dima and Zhenya (though if he is not careful Dima will shortly leave him with nothing but an _As_ to his name) or at Tola’s hearth.

He knows most of his men think he is bedding her, and in truth the thought has crossed his mind once or twice, but he is not without honour, and there is no surer way of losing it than to take someone against their will. Tola made it plain to him from the first day he came to their bothy his attentions would not be welcome, eyes hard despite her clear fear of what he would do if she refused, and it has been only after many weeks of careful distance on his part that she has lost the wariness couched in every line of her body and every word she spoke.

It is on one warm autumn evening as he dandles Cwen on his knees, obediently following her demands to “Go faster, Sasha!”, that Tola comes into the steading, her shoulders tight in a way they have not been around him for many weeks now.

He tilts his head at her, questioning, and she shakes her head, addressing Cwen instead. “ _Hīwfæst,_ go and see if the chickens have laid any eggs.”

The child scrambles happily off his lap and runs off to comply.

“Tola?” Sasha asks, frowning. “What is it?”

Instead of answering, she steps to the door and pulls the blanket covering the entrance aside just enough that she can peer out, gaze darting both directions before she comes back to the hearth, kneeling and beginning to lay the fire for the evening’s meal. Her long braid swings over one shoulder as she says, voice so low he must lean close to hear it, “What I tell you is treason to my people and they would say heresy to my gods, but – you have been kind to my Cwen, and you had one of your own men whipped for what he did to Aethel, and so I tell you this. A holy man from the north has come.”

There is no need for her to say more. Sasha remembers all too clearly what whirlwinds of destruction follow in these holy men’s wake. He stands at once, reaching for his helm and settling it onto his head. He cannot stay to break bread tonight. The guard must be doubled, and the scouting party he sent out a week ago brought back, and a messenger sent to Isca Silurium to alert their commander, and –

“Centurion.”

Tola’s voice arrests him as he reaches for the door covering. She has long since given in to his urgings that she call him Sasha, or Alex if she cannot manage the familiar.

“Please,” she says, hands gripping the sides of her dress so tightly her fingers have gone white. “I would ask – I would – beg. They are – they believe they are in the right. I ask the impossible, I know, but –”

Sasha turns, coming back and bending to cover one of her hands with his own war-scarred one. “I try, always, for peace. If we fight, you have my promise is only to stop, not to destroy. I tell my men; mercy is mark of a good man, a good soldier.”

Her other hand rises and touches his cheek once, fleeting. “You are a good man, Sasha of the Magyar.”

___

Despite Tola’s warning and the uneasy quiet that lays over the too-hot settlement and fort, for a full week nothing happens worse than a brawl between two of Sasha’s men over nothing worse than a misplaced cloak pin. Zhenya separates them and sets them both to latrine duty for a week, but his face is worried when he comes to tell Sasha of it.

“The men are worried and restless,” he says quietly, “They know something is amiss, but without a target they will swiftly turn on each other with more damage done than by the two fools today.”

“I know.” Sasha stares out over the battlements at the still settlement in front of them and the woods beyond that stretching out as far as the eye can see.

Zhenya waits a moment, and when Sasha says nothing else, prompts, “If we had some idea of the danger, even –”

“I cannot –” Sasha’s hand flexes convulsively on his sword hilt before he forces himself to relax his grip. “There is nothing I know that they do not. A holy man has been seen, and where one of those comes, always follows discontent and danger.”

“Should we not send parties in search of the lunatic? Kill him before he has a chance to infect the people?”

“And turn him into a martyr?” Sasha shakes his head. “No. Matters will come to a head soon enough, and if men have energy for petty fights and concerns they have energy to mend old war machines and clear plain in front of wall.”

“Sasha –” Zhenya begins, but the glare Sasha sends him is enough to have him amend,

“Yes, Centurion.”

_____

Matters do indeed come to a head not two days hence. Their first warning is a volley of flaming arrows sent over the battlements directed at the newly mended war machines and the thatched roof of the stables.

The damage done is minimal, and the attackers are swiftly driven off by a strong return of crossbow bolts from the double posting of men on guard, but all quiet grumbling over the extra duties has been forcibly silenced by this evidence of actual danger.

The next morning a shout from the sentry brings Sasha running – the patrol he had sent out weeks ago has returned. They’re approaching the gates at a swift trot, shields in testudo formation and spears out and ready.

As soon as they emerge from the woods, though, the tribesmen are heading towards them with the wild, undulating yells that are enough to chill even the hardiest soldier. Sasha snaps out orders even as he races for the stables, making for his horse. “Lay down cover fire as heavy as you can! One century with me for relief force! Tribune Placidus, have your men ready to open gates.”

The next few minutes are a blur of sensation and in the months afterward Sasha will have no more than dim impressions of events. The nervous energy of his horse as he dances underneath him and the coarse damp of his coat as Sasha lays a hand on his shoulder to calm him.

A sudden rush of wind picking up ash and dust and throwing it into his eyes.

The familiar feeling of battle-lust rising within him as he charges toward the men threatening the lives of his own men.

The eyes of the first man, white with terror as Sasha lays him out with a hard blow from his spear and the hot metal taste of blood splattering on his face and armor.

His horse stumbling beneath him and the breath rushing out of him all at once as he hits the ground and rolls.

Meeting the eyes of the soldier – no more than a boy – in front of the testudo and seeing in them the awful knowledge his death was only a breath away and shouldering his way in front of the blade about to find the gap between his shield and helmet.

Catching the blade meant for the boy’s neck on the flat of his own blade and turning it aside only to stumble as white hot agony flames in his hip.

Looking down and realising, distant, that there is a spear not a handbreadth from his groin and glancing up to see the wild eyes and hair of the holy man.

Just before darkness clouds his vision completely he sees Dima’s face, contorted in rage, looming above the feather filled hair of the holy lunatic and the tip of his blade as he runs him through.

Sasha drifts, flashes of the same red hot pain interspersed with low voices he only dimly recognises and a sickly sweet taste on his tongue followed by more darkness.

He remembers crying out, once, warning the boy in the patrol to raise his shield as he struggles to come to his aid, and gentle hands pressing him back as a voice tells him again and again that the boy is safe, that his men are well, and then that sickly sweet drink and the familiar darkness.

When he wakes again, goddess only knows how much later, the agony in his hip dulled to a banked ember and his mind his own and not a fevered haze, he turns his head to see Tola by his bed, hands busy with some kind of needlework.

“Tola,” he manages, tongue feeling absurdly thick in his mouth. “What happened? There was – spear, I think, and – young boy, one in patrol, and rest of my men, are they –”

“Hush,” Tola scolds him, rising and lifting a clay cup full of cool water to his lips. “Stay still, and I will tell you.”

He scowls at her – he is a centurion, and no babe in arms to be so coddled, but she merely looks at him, unimpressed, and he sighs, settling back obediently.

“The boy is well. Zhenya will know details, but nearly all your men made it back safely. The – the holy man is dead.” Tola pauses, hands twisting in her lap for a moment and head bowed. “There was another commander here. Centurion Hornqvist. He meant to burn and salt our fields.”

Sasha starts upright again, ignoring the pain that springs instantly to fierce life. “I gave orders –”

“Easy, easy, Alex. Zhenya refused. He informed the commander of your orders, and said plainly that so long as you breathed your orders were paramount. The harvest stands.” Her eyes are soft. “There are many of my people who owe you their lives.”

“Is to you they owe their lives.” Sasha counters.

Tola waves this aside. “Your wound – both I and Gaius have done what we can, but you have been in a fever for over a fortnight, now.”

Sasha grimaces. “Is not good to hear. Zhenya and Dima not ready for so long command; need to get back to work.”

“Alex –” Tola sits, slowly, at the end of his cot. “Sasha. You are lucky to be alive. Gaius was ready to give you over to the gods when Dima came for me. I finished cleaning the wound, but there had been shards of the spear lodged in it for two long. I – cannot tell if it will bear your weight for longer than a few moments.”

For a long breath Sasha can do nothing but stare at her. All his life he has been a soldier – Mikhail was a soldier, and Tatiana, and her father before her. To reach this rank at last in the face of everyone who sneered and derided him because he fought with too much joy, laughed too loudly, celebrated victories too raucously, only to return home in disgrace – he turns away, pressing his face to the rough blanket.

“Sasha –”

“I would be alone,” he interrupts her, rough. She is kind, but he cannot – if he could stand, gods, yes, if only he could _stand_ he would shout and storm and throw a few things and then his temper would clear and he would be himself again, but this is a storm he fears for once he cannot weather. If he is not a soldier, what does he have left?

___

The answer, it turns out, is a trophy, to be paraded around by his cousin’s friends and shown off as an example of what the strictures of Rome can do with even the brutish Magyar. And he grits his teeth and smiles through their clench and agrees that it is wonderful that a man of his disadvantages could have come so far, and yes, he is honoured by the gifting of the bracelet that marks him as having been discharged with honour, and yes, his cousin Sergei Fyodorov was kindness itself to offer him a place to stay in Calleva.

And his cousin is kind, in the distant, abstracted way of a scholar who has never felt the thrumming need to move until his mind clears and his body drips with sweat. Sergei has given him a room and free leave of all his grounds and the gentle horse he uses once a month, and Sergei’s cook Sassticca clucks her tongue at him and feeds him as many honeycakes as he will take, but Sasha is restless even so. His leg will bear his weight, now, although not without a constant, low-level ache that sharpens to dull fire if he is on it too long. Or sitting too long. Or sleeps for more than an hour in the same position.

Nevertheless, he knows he should be grateful he has it at all – he has seen far too many missing limbs in his years. He is sitting on the edge of his cot, leaning heavily on the stick Old Marcipor, Sergei’s house-slave, has found for him and wondering if the winding trek to the bathhouse is worth it, when Marcipor appears in his doorway.

“My master wishes to see you in the atrium, at your convenience, Centurion.”

Sasha limps into the atrium in Marcipor’s wake and finds Sergei eating his customary morning meal of porridge and apricots, looking over some scrolls as he does so. He looks up when Sasha comes in, smiling.

“Ah, Alex. I trust you rested well?”

Sasha starts to shrug, and then bethinks himself of all he owes his uncle and nods instead. “Thank you, yes. Good sleep.”

“Excellent. Tribune Gretzky has just sent us an invitation to the circus this afternoon. It’s a small affair, of course, only a few animal fights and a sham-gladiator fight, but he assures me there will be a surprise spectacle as well.”

This time Sasha does shrug. He has no plans today or any other day, and if Sergei wishes for him to come so that Tribune Gretzky may show him off in his box, he has no real objections.

“Wonderful. I will send him our respectful acceptance.” Sergei nods at Marcipor, and the slave bows and departs slowly as Sassticca comes in, bearing porridge for Sasha with figs and dates as well as apricots and clucks, as she does every morning, over how pale he looks and how much more he needs to eat.

Sasha has to take a litter to the ampitheatre, his leg still too weak to endure the journey on either horseback or afoot. The only others arriving in a litter are the sleek, pampered wives of the officials and tribunes, and those officials too old to sit a horse. He makes his bows to Tribune Gretzky and his wife and successfully forstalls any attempts at conversation by the latter by pretending his Latin is much weaker than it is, and then the circus begins and he may mercifully turn his attention to the arena.

The first display is entertaining enough – a trained bear and his master – and then comes another bear, this one clearly wild, prodded into the arena with long spears by several attendants and killed easily and swiftly by the man sent out to meet it. Sasha cannot help but think of Tola and how she despised casual cruelty of this sort. ‘Killing for meat is one thing,’ he can almost hear her say, ‘but to kill for sport, merely to give crowds blooded sand? Such things are marks of actual barbarians.’

And, as the carcass is dragged out of one of the many doors and the sand raked over, clean, Sasha cannot help but agree with her. And then the next display is announced and as one, the crowd leans forward, breathless with anticipation. This is what they have come for, in truth, a fight to the death between two gladiators, and Sasha has a sudden vision of the whole crowd as a pack of wild dogs that have scented a wounded deer and are waiting eagerly for the signal to fall upon her.

At his side, Sergei is frowning, the lines in his forehead deepening as the gate opens again and the gladiators step out. “Goddess forgive us,” he mutters, and Sasha looks at him, surprised. Sergei never speaks their native tongue, not even when it is only the two of them alone. “They are slaves – see, their ears have been clipped. And the fisherman pitted against only a swordsman? The thing will be a slaughter.”

Sasha begins to reply, but just then the second gladiator, the swordsman, lifts his head, taking in the teeming stands with such cool indifference he might be doing nothing more than choosing which spear to take to hunt. His eyes meet Sasha’s, only for a moment and nothing more, but Sasha’s entire body feels in that instant as though he has been thrust into a mountain stream full of just melted ice and he’s left breathless and gasping with the shock of it. He had been rubbing at his thigh as stealthily as he could, shifting now and again to try and ease the worst of the ache, but abruptly the pain in his leg is a distant concern against the intimacy of that quick green-eyed gaze.

The _editor_ gives the signal to begin, and Sasha leans forward, every muscle of his body tensed. The two combatants circle each other, the fisherman occasionally feinting to the left or right, needing the other to make only a small stumble for him to cast his net and entangle the swordsman in it. The swordsman neither stumbles nor falls, his eyes fixed steadily on his opponent. The crowd is growing restless as they continue to circle, shouting insults and encouragement alike, and the fisherman is flicking quick glances at the stands nervously. He knows it will not be enough to simply best his opponent, for his freedom depends on the crowd’s approval and the show they put on. He lunges, finally, flicking the net towards the swordsman, who darts out of the way only just in time, grip tightening and then relaxing on his sword hilt.

He’s big boned, the swordsman, all heavy shoulders and stolid grace where the fisherman is whip-cord thin and long limbed. Despite his large frame, though, he is light enough on his feet, leading the fisherman a merry chase around the arena, always slipping out of range of the net and cruel triton. On one of the laps, Sasha sees him stumble, and his heart leaps into his throat as the fisherman presses his advantage, flinging the net and catching the swordsman a sharp blow on the head with one of the weighted stones at the net’s edge.

The swordsman staggers, falling onto his knees in the sand, and the fisherman advances again, net already gathered and ready for another throw. Before he can complete his catch, though, the swordsman is spinning, a handful of fine dust and sand flung at the would-be victor’s face. The fisherman stumbles in his turn, crying out and clawing at his eyes, and the swordsman in the space of a breath has him down on the sand, the net wrapped around its owner’s wrists and the trident at the fisherman’s throat.

There’s a startled silence from the crowd. The swordsman used his sword not at all, and honour forbids a gladiator use weapons other than his own. And, certainly, any Roman would say the sand was a coward’s trick, but Sasha cannot find it in his heart to agree. With the advantage so clearly on the fisher’s side, why should the swordsman not use any weapons he could.

Here the swordsman should have waited, looking to the crowd and the highest ranking official for the word to either finish the kill or stay his hand, but the swordsman never looks up, only switching out trident for sword and kneeling, saying something quietly to the fisher before he calmly, deliberately, slits his throat.

The silence deepens, the crowd torn between satisfaction at blood spilled and rage that they should not have been consulted. The low murmurs of discontent beginning to spread seem to trouble the swordsman not at all, his stance just as indifferent as he tosses the sword to the ground and stands, eyes again raking the stands with none of the subservience typically present in someone whose life is in the hands of those he views. His gaze has only just reached Sasha’s again when the crowd’s anger spills over and three or four attendants converge on him, wrenching his arms behind his back and binding him before marching him back down the tunnel. Sasha knows two things, as surely as if they were scribed into his skin. The first is that the _editor_ will have this man killed, and the second that such a man will never beg for mercy.

Sasha is on his feet before he has thought, turning urgently to Sergei. “I want him.” He says, Magyar rough in his throat. “Will they give him to me on your credit?”

Sergei stares at him, clearly wondering if he has gone out of his mind. “Aleksander, I can find you a slave. Surely you cannot mean –”

“They will kill him,” Sasha interrupts, “You know this. A gladiator who doesn’t play by their rules? He is worthless to them. If they will not take your credit –”

Sergei shakes his head and gestures in defeat. “They will take my word, but you have only yourself to blame when you do not wake tomorrow because your new body slave has slit your throat.”

But Sasha hears only the first part of this, because he is already beckoning one of the small boys that always flock to such events, hoping for a few sesterces in exchange for taking messages or running errands.

“Tell _editor_ I want to buy swordsman. Tell him I give him fair price. Go, swift.”

The boy nods and ducks away to obey. Sasha sits again, one hand returning to rub his thigh harshly. What if he is too late? If the man has already been slaughtered – but no, the boy has reached the _editor_ , and he is frowning, yes, but nodding too. He looks to where Sasha and Sergei sit, and Sergei, praise the goddesses, gives him the mercy sign, thumb pointing towards the sky.

Sasha sits back in his seat, breath leaving him all in a rush.

“Well, cousin,” Sergei says, quietly. “And what will you do with your murderous body slave, now that you have him?”

Sasha had no thought but saving his life, and the truth of this must be apparent on his face, for Sergei laughs at him and claps him on the shoulder, wishing him joy of his purchase.

Marcipor is sent to fetch the man after they have arrived back home, and Sasha is in bed when he returns. The swordsman’s arms are still bound behind himself, and poor Marcipor is still shaking in every limb as he announces their presence.

“Thank you, Marcipor,” Sasha says, as kindly as he can, “Sergei will want you, I think.”

The man makes no move from where he stands in the doorway as Marcipor darts around him and disappears, but his head is tilted as he regards Sasha.

“You are not Roman,” he says, in accented but clear Latin. “And yet you wear their robes and were in their service.”

“I was,” Sasha agrees, levering himself out of bed with a wince, and reaching for his belt knife. The man does not flinch, but there is a sudden tension in the lines of his body that stays even as Sasha uses it only to cut his bonds.

“Why did you save my life?” The man asks, blunt.

“There is no good in your death,” Sasha says, cursing, not for the first time, his clumsiness in this goddess’ damned tongue. “And I think – maybe we are same. Both need to win.”

Those eyes find his again, catching and holding him as surely as though Sasha himself were bound. He is close enough that Sasha can feel the damp of his breath on his cheek, but neither of them move for what is either the space of a breath or an eternity.

And then the man steps back, dipping his head in a perfunctory bow. “Lars Nicklas, I am called.”

“Aleksander Ovechkin,” Sasha says, “Or Alex.”

“Or master,” Nicklas says, flat green gaze not shifting.

Sasha shrugs a shoulder. “Until you cut my throat, yes.”

There’s a flicker of something that might be a smile at one corner of Nicklas’ mouth, and then he puts his hand into the breast of his tunic and pulls out a knife. The blade is short and the handle worn, but it is clearly a thing well loved and the blade is sharp enough that Sasha can see the edge even in the candlelight. He refuses to let his gaze linger on it, though, looking instead back into Nicklas’ face. If Nicklas truly wishes to kill him, he will have a harder time of it than perhaps he thinks. But Nicklas only flips the blade around in his hand, thoughtful. “If they had not killed me,” he says, “I had this to my release. But then Gar came and said someone had bought me, and I thought – perhaps it was the Centurion. And so I waited. If it had not been you I would have gone, one way or another.”

“And now?” Sasha asks, and the insanity of such a conversation between a man and his slave is nowhere in his mind.

“Now,” Nicklas flips the blade again and offers it to Sasha, hilt first. “I am yours, to keep guard over you.” His mouth twists. “Like a faithful dog.”

Despite himself, Sasha cannot help but laugh even as he accepts the offered knife. “If you are dog then I am goat.” He shakes his head. “You are – in my country we call, сын волка. Wolf-bred.”

There’s an answering gleam of amusement in those flat green eyes and Nicklas tilts his head in acknowledgement.

“The fisher,” Sasha says, giving in to the demands of his wound and limping back towards his bed, letting himself down heavily onto it. “Why you just kill him?”

“You are wounded?” Nicklas asks instead of answering, moving with that same grace Sasha noticed earlier that seems so at odds with his large frame to crouch in front of him, blunt tipped fingers moving Sasha’s hem out of the way. Sasha looks down in surprise at the wheat gold head before him.

“Is old, now.”

Nicklas says nothing for a moment, head still bowed and fingers hovering just over the angry scar, and then – “We are given – rewards. If we fight well. Food, or money, or women. Lucanus always chose women. He was not – kind.” He lifts his head. “This is why you are not still a soldier.”

“Rome has no use for crippled Centurion.” Sasha gestures to his stick, leaning within easy reach. “Only show me off, see what Rome can do for barbarian. Like trained dog, do tricks.”

“Well.” Nicklas rises. “Perhaps there is some teeth left in both of us yet.”

_____

Having a body slave turns out to be not so very different from Sasha’s first days as Centurion – save instead of a _cacula_ , his camp servant, clanking behind him mixing up his orders and brewing his tea to undrinkable levels, he has Nicklas, a silent presence at Sasha’s back, carrying the spear that distinguishes him from the other house-slaves and pouring Sasha’s wine at meals. After that first night, Nicklas never wavers from the polite deference of a well-trained body slave, and Sasha does not press him. Nicklas will tell him more, or he will not, and Sasha is at least attentive enough to know that nothing Sasha does will bring anything out of Nicklas that he does not wish to give.

Sooner than he would have thought possible for one such as he, senses still soldier-sharp and made sharper still by the persistency of the pain, he grows used to Nicklas having his tea ready, hot and strong, just as he is beginning to think about waking. Used to leaving his stick aside, leaning instead on Nicklas’ strong arm when the pain is very bad, and Nicklas’ hands on his thigh and leg, face in shadow as he bends over Sasha, rubbing and working at the muscle until the spasm eases and Sasha can breathe easy again.

Nicklas trails him dutifully to the various gatherings that Sasha is still, somehow, expected to attend, surprising Sasha into choking on his newly-filled wine as he murmurs pointed commentary on the rest of the guests with only a secret tilt to his mouth giving away that he had made any jest at all.

Nicklas also manages to completely win over both Sassticca and Marcipor, for he is far more willing to sit for hours listening to her tales of Britain in the long-ago days as his hands are busy with some piece of leather work or mending of Sasha’s tunics, and his presence means Marcipor is free to slip out and find a cock-fight or simply doze on a garden bench. The man had raised an eyebrow, the first time he had seen Sasha make his slow way into the kitchen and sit heavily on the bench by the fire, but Sassticca had reacted as she always did – scolding him for taking the stairs by himself and pressing honey-cakes on him before going back to her baking and the long story she was telling Nicklas of her mother’s mother and how she had turned her hand to witching after the harvest was poor one year, and how her skill with bees meant they had honey and to spare the rest of her mother’s childhood, yes, and her own as well.

When Sassticca had bustled out to the kitchen garden, Nicklas had glanced at Sasha, eyebrows raised. “You spend time with slaves? In kitchen?”

Sasha had scowled. “Sassticca is good to me. Kind. And we all just people.”

“Hmm.” Nicklas had bent back over his work. “Except that some of us can order the others beaten to death, or sent to the galleys.”

There had been nothing Sasha could say to that, for it was the truth, and the truth is nearly always harsher than the cruelest lie. That night, though, he had asked Sergei to help him draw up papers for Nicklas’ release.

_____

Sasha came often to the kitchen, after that, and though at first Nicklas was quiet, speaking only when Sassticca spoke to him or when Sasha asked him a question, as time went on and Sasha allowed himself to be meekly ordered about by Sassticca and laughed easily with Nessa, the cook from the villa next door who came over often to gossip with Sassticca as they baked, Nicklas seemed gradually to become more at ease with him.

One such day after Sasha has just complimented Sassticca on her recent batch of sweet wine cakes, saying they are the finest he has had since his mother’s, Nicklas waits until Sassticca has swept next door, still chuckling at Sasha, to ask, “Where is your mother?”

Sasha is surprised, though he tries not to look so. Nicklas has never once asked Sasha any kind of personal question, and most often refers to him only as ‘Centurion’.

(“Would the Centurion like the grey or the blue tunic today?” “If the Centurion is finished in the baths Councilor Sergei would like a word.” “Sassticca wishes me to tell the Centurion he is to eat ever bite of his pottage.”)

“Why you ask?”

Most slaves, Sasha thinks, would retract the question at once and apologise. Most slaves would not have asked at all. Nicklas only lifts one shoulder, attention not wavering from the belt he is mending.

“You speak of her fondly, and yet you live here, with Councilor Sergei. You are no longer a soldier – surely you could return home.”

Sasha does not think he is imagining either the emphasis on the word ‘you’ or the bitterness with which it is said. He could refuse to answer, or strike Nicklas for being insolent, or simply say that he has no wish to speak of it, but the thought of raising a hand in truth to Nicklas makes his hands go cold and a knot start in his stomach. To replay the small trusts Nicklas has begun to give him with the mindless cruelty Rome seems to demand of her masters has begun feel as abhorrent to Sasha as it would be to see a very young animal caught on a ledge and shoving it off instead of delivering it safely to its mother.

He says to Nicklas, haltingly, “My mother – very important person, at home. She is like. Small Caesar.” Here in the dimly lit kitchen, Sasha smirks a little and adds, “More frightening than Roman Caesar.” He thinks he sees a ghost of a smile on Nicklas’ lips at that. “When Rome starts attacking borders, she goes and talks to general. Says, we make alliance, give you many good soldiers, you leave us alone. My mama, she knows what happens when people fight the Red Crests.” Sasha pauses, but Nicklas says nothing, so he goes on. “The general say yes, he agree to this. But he say they need – what is word. Person who is like seal for good acts?”

Nicklas looks puzzled for a moment before his face smooths out. “Ah. Hostage.”

“Hostage, yes, thank you. So they take my sister and they take me. Me, I want to be soldier, all my life I want. So is not hard thing. But my sister, she like – horses, and outside, and hunt. In Roman fort, they say, no, you not do this, you stay and do –” Sasha makes sewing motions, and then holds up one hand like he is looking in a polished piece of copper and primps with the other. And that is definitely a laugh from Nicklas this time. Sasha smiles to himself, secret, before he goes on, more solemn. “So she very much hate. Always she run away, hide in stables, ride horses too fast before she come back. One day is winter, she is run away and go for ride, and she is – fall through ice. But my country, is very cold, all Maygar children know how be safe when fall through ice. My sister, she would be fine, but she try to help horse, too. When she come back to fort, is too late. Cold is in her bones, her –” Sasha gestures to his chest. “They tell my mama, she come in time to say good-bye. Then they say, because sister is gone, still need hostage. So they keep my mama instead. When I am hurt, I want go home, yes, but I am not allowed see my mama. So I stay here with Sergei, mama’s brother, because he is big trader in Britain, and he say is fine I stay.”

Nicklas has put down the belt, eyes more soft than Sasha has ever seen them. He says only, though, “What was her name? Your sister?”

“Kseniya.”

Nicklas nods, and they say no more then, but the next day Nicklas says out of nowhere, “My family was killed by the Romans. We were traders, coming down the coast to Flevum, and the fleet came on us suddenly. We spoke no Latin, and they would not have listened if we had. My father and mother were killed and all the rest of the crew, but I was taken and sold three times before I came to Calleva.”

For the space of a dozen heartbeats there is no sound but the occasional pop or snap of the fire, and then Sasha says, quiet, “It is in my heart that I am sorry they take your mama and your papa. And I am sorry, too, that they take you to be slave, even if it mean I get to know you now.”

It seems poor comfort indeed, but Nicklas nods again, and they sit in quiet the rest of the night until it is time that Nicklas helps Sasha up the stairs and onto his cot, but the quiet is not filled any longer with a hundred unsaid daggers, and despite the sadness Sasha feels both for himself and for Nicklas, there is something like peace in his heart as he pulls the striped native blanket up to his neck and drifts to sleep.

The times in the kitchen thereafter remain some of Sasha’s warmest memories. Nicklas and Sassticca often join forces to browbeat him into doing the stretches and exercises Sergei’s physic had determined would best strengthen his leg. On occasion they are joined in this by Andre, who appears in their kitchen like a lithe, brazen ghost one day and attaches himself to Nicklas and Sassticca in equal parts. He is the slave of one of the local tribunes, but seems to slip constantly away in order to jest with Sassticca over the quality of her baking or poke sly fun at Sasha for lacking to finish his pottage or simply to sit quietly at the table and watch Nicklas work at whatever bit of leather or cloth he is occupying himself with. He stays, most days, until another of the household comes to drag him away  – most often it is a slight, fair-featured man Andre calls ‘T.J.’, that Nicklas tells Sasha is the cook, but sometimes is a tall, squarely built man called Thomas. When he comes it is most often in the company of another man, Michael, the two of them moving in such easy synchronicity that it is easy for Sasha to believe they are the household litter-bearers.

He wonders at it, sometimes – that Andre seeks out their company so often, that the others will linger on the threshold even as they remonstrate Andre for lingering. It is as though they are at once reluctant to leave the warmth of the low-ceilinged room and equally loathe to take Andre back to their master. The life of a slave is not an easy one, certainly, but they all seem fond of the boy, and he doubts they would let any true harm come to him if they could help it. And, indeed. Looking at Nicklas as his eyes follow Andre’s bowed shoulders and Michael’s arm across these same shoulders, Sasha thinks here is another who would strive mightily to protect the boy from harm of any sort. Again he thinks of the papers, and again thrusts the tendrils of guilt away. A little time, still, and he will give them to Nicklas.

_____

There was a shadow moving in the corner, the figure soft-footed enough to only be one person.

“Nicklas?” Sasha props himself up on one elbow, peering groggily at the broad shape.

And Nicklas is there, crouching by his bed, pale face nearly glowing in the pre-dawn light. “There is a hunt,” he says without preamble. “A wolf pack has been sighted nearby. It was my thought that if the centurion can spare me for a short time –”

“Of course,” Sasha interrupts, firmly pushing away the wild desire that leapt into his heart at the mention of a hunt. If he cannot take part in the chase, far better that Nicklas should go and be free for a time than Sasha deny them both out of bitterness. “Take my spears, and tell Sassticca give you bread and meat to break your fast.”

Nicklas hesitates a moment longer. “If you have need –”

“Ai, you are like old woman.” Sasha fumbles a hand out and pats blindly at Nicklas’ arm. “Go. Good hunting.”

There’s a brush against his hand and then Nicklas is gone, as silently as he had come. Sasha rolls over, curling beneath the blanket against the early morning chill, and falls back into the arms of Marzanna.

He’s rudely awoken again some hours later, late enough that the sun is full and warm upon his legs, easing the ever present ache in his thigh and hip. The counterweight to this, the growling, biting bundle of fur with bright eyes assaulting his arm. Sasha raises astonished eyes to Nicklas’ amused ones.

“A wolfcub?”

“Aye. We found and killed the parents, but they were near a den, and I thought –” Nicklas raises a shoulder in a half shrug. “A cub makes a good hunter, if you get him young enough.”

“Nicklas,” Sasha says, already offering his hand for the cub’s perusal, “How if there is other member of pack? Is not worth it, losing Nicklas for cub.”

Nicklas’ chin comes up, the amusement in his eyes dying away and replaced by the same cold look Sasha remembered from the arena. “The centurion knows I can kill. Perhaps my master is worried about the loss of his money? Perhaps there are – other things you wish from me, more personal than a wolf cub, that would be less comely with the addition of scars.”

“No!” Sasha protests, struggling upright and upsetting the cub, who whines and snaps at his leg. Without looking, Nicklas catches him up, broad fingers clamping the muzzle shut and shaking, once.

“Nicklas, it is not – what is this talk? I would never – and I know you good at hunting. It is only that I worried.” Sasha frowns, taking in the way Nicklas is flushed, more heavily than even a long hunt would account for, and the rigid uneasiness that lies between his shoulder blades, and Sasha may be loud and his Latin poor, but he can read the truth of this clear enough. “Someone did something.”

Nicklas’ head comes up at that, expression turning astonished for a moment before going wary and then blank, smooth, the perfect mask of the perfect slave. “It is not my place –”

Sasha swears, low and fierce, the sense of it coming through even though Nicklas can’t know the meaning. “You said we have teeth yet, and with this cub we have even more, I will rip out their _throats_ – that they should _dare_ touch –”

“Alex!” Nicklas looks alarmed, now, eyes wide and his free hand raised, as though to ward Sasha off. “Alex, easy, it was – no one touched me. I swear it. I would have broken their fingers myself –”

“ –Good–” Sasha cannot help interjecting, and Nicklas sends him a tolerant look before continuing,

“It was only one of the tribunes on the hunt that said – he asked –” Nicklas breaks off again, cheeks flushing a little, “I told him you did not share.”

Sasha’s teeth clench so hard his jaw aches with it. He can guess at which tribune it would have been. Tribune Cherry has done nothing but insult Sasha behind a polite smile since Sasha came to Calleva. He’s of the old school, the ones who think no one but boys Roman born and bred should be soldiers at all, much less commanders, and complains whenever Sasha is within earshot of the ‘unruliness’ of today’s cohorts and the ‘boisterousness’ and ‘barbaric ways’ of the northern men, always careful to assure Sasha he did not mean _him_ , of course. Always sharp little knives beneath his tongue and a serpent’s smile on his lips. He can well imagine the tribune’s delight at finding Nicklas was Sasha’s – to him, Nicklas would be nothing but one more arrow to his quiver of attempts to burrow beneath Sasha’s flesh.

“I am sorry, Nicklas,” Sasha says quietly. “He is like snake when venom almost gone – trying to bite lots of people before he dries up and die. It is in my heart – I am sorry he try to bite poison in you. Next time he try, you tell me and if you want, I kill him.”

Nicklas says nothing for a long moment, head still turned away from Sasha and fingers stroking gently over the cub’s rough fur. “My family – they called me Nicke,” he says at length, gruff. “It is less cumbersome, perhaps, than Nicklas.”

“Nicke,” Sasha tries, tongue twisting as he tried to imitate the way Nicklas had said it, and from the tiny smile lurking around Nicke’s mouth, butchering it rather badly.

“I will teach you,” Is all Nicke says, simple, and Sasha thrills at that, thinks guiltily of the scroll sitting in a niche in Sergei’s office before pushing the thought away, focussing instead on the promise of later inherent in Nicke’s words.

“I think we name cub Ovi,” Sasha declares. “For most best warrior, so he will be very strong, very brave, very –”

“Modest?” Nicke asks, dry, and Sasha is so delighted by this return to their easy back-and-forth he simply smiles at the other man, wide, and lets the insult slide.

___

 

He follows Marcipor into the atrium, Nicke a half step behind as is his custom when Sasha doesn’t need his support, and stops short as he sees who is sitting on the couch across from Sergei.

Sergei stands, looking deeply uncomfortable. “Alex. You know Tribune Cherry, I think. Tribune, my nephew Aleksander Ovechkin and his body slave, Nicklas.”

“I am acquainted with both of these,” the Tribune says, false smile fixed firmly on a face clearly more used to scowling, “Nicky, so good to see you again, and in such good health! Alexander, I hope your injuries are not troubling you overmuch.”

Sasha can feel Nicke stiffening at his back, at both the over familiar form of address and also, knowing Nicke, probably almost as much at how badly it’s been pronounced. Gods know Sasha himself took long enough to get the trick of it. He ignores the obvious insult in Cherry addressing Nicklas first and seats himself on the couch next to Sergei, smiling his biggest smile, the one that shows where all his teeth aren’t. Teeth he lost in battle in defense of Rome and her people, something Tribune Cherry has never experienced.

“Why so much honour?” He asks, knowing without looking that Nicke is standing just behind him, to all appearances the perfect body slave, silent and attentive. “How can poor soldier help noble tribune?”

He thickens his accent on purpose, knowing full well how Cherry despises any non-native man, but Sasha is a Roman citizen in his own right, and he has seen two full decades of combat to this man’s one term. A term that, it is rumoured, he spent cloistered in Thrace and _not_ , as he claimed, with the Egyptian Legion.

Cherry’s teeth grit visibly before he forces his face into a smile again. “So kind of you to ask. As a matter of fact, I heard from my friend Jagomir that you have been feeling – restless, of late. It is hard, of course, for a man of your...temperament...to be idle for so long. Not to mention the – drain. On one’s coffers.” He carefully does not look at Sergei, though the implication is clear. Sasha is imposing on his uncle’s charity and goodwill, and if he were a real man he would have taken some sort of employment months ago.

Sergei, goddess bless him, interrupts here, frowning. “Hold, tribune – my nephew is welcome here for as long as he wishes. I will not have you –”

“Oh, of course, of course. Jupiter, of course I did not mean to imply anything otherwise. Simply pointing out how interesting I found it that a man in your position would have the resources to purchase and keep a body-slave.”

His eyes, almost carelessly, drift over Sasha’s shoulder and rake Nicke up and down before they return to Sasha. “Certain parties – not myself, of course – are asking questions. Wondering exactly how it is you have been able to afford it, or if there is some kind of...corruption.”

Sasha feels rage fly through him like fire beneath his skin. The man dares to imply that he would so ill treat his own uncle or that he would enslave a freeman. He does not even realise he has stood until he feels Sergei’s hand on his shoulder, pulling him back from where he’s glaring down at the tribune, hands clenched into fists.

“What,” Sergei says quietly, “Exactly are you saying, Tribune? And have a care – you are a guest in my house, but you tread very close to insults even guest-rights cannot cover.”

“Why, I come to offer your cousin a job, Councilor Fyodorov. A mission, straight from Rome, in fact.”

The job, as Tribune Cherry explains it, concerns a lost Eagle from the Ninth legion, lost when the legion marched North of the wall nine years ago, and never reformed. Every single man had been lost, and the Eagle with them. Now, Rome wants the Eagle back. There are rumours one of the northern tribes is using it as a standard, proof that Rome is weak. With the – struggles at home, a full cohort cannot be spared, and so they wish to send a single man. If he succeeds, a reward, and if he fails – well, it is only one man.

“Your slave, of course, is welcome to a place in my house while you are gone, if he wishes,” the tribune finishes, those pale eyes wandering again to Nicke.

Sasha can feel Nicke’s shudder of revulsion and controls his temper with an effort. “Is not necessary,” he grits out. “In fact, Nicke is no longer my slave. He is free man.”

“Oh?” Something ugly flashes in Cherry’s eyes. “Where are his manumission papers?”

Sasha knows Nicke is staring at him, his ‘you _fool_ ’ face blistering enough to give Sasha boils, but he ignores it, looking pleadingly at Sergei, who, thankfully, nods.

“They are in my office. Marcipor will fetch them.”

The silence is deafening, between Cherry looking like he wants to render Sasha limb from limb, the way Sasha would like to do the same to him in turn, and the way Nicke wants to murder them both and then take Sergei and move to the wilderness and live peacefully for the rest of their lives with two goats and a few chickens.

When Marcipor returns, scroll in hand, Cherry snatches it before anyone else can even make a move towards it, eyes scanning it rapidly before he tosses it aside and stands, face flushed a deep, ugly red. “So.” He says, teeth clenching. “Very well, Ovechkin. This round to you. You are to report to Commander Honorius by midday tomorrow for further instructions for your mission.” He leaves without even a perfunctory leave of Sergei, and they hear him in the entry-way roaring for his litter and cursing at his bodyguards for the space of a long few breaths before there is silence once again.

Nicke is the first to stir, stepping stiffly around the couch to face Sasha, every line of his body taut. “The papers –”

“Are real,” Sasha says, wearily, distantly registering Sergei slipping quietly away, doubtless sensing the tension still in the air. “I had Sergei draw them up weeks ago.”

Nicke pauses, cold rage flickering to light. “And you did not tell me – why?”

Sasha forces himself to meet that icy gaze. “I was afraid,” he says, quietly. “I always meant to give you freedom. Sergei told me no, say you will kill me. I say, you not kill me, because I’m so strong, so good fighter. Sergei say I’m idiot. Like you always say.” He risks a smile, but it’s not returned, Nicklas’ eyes still burning. He hangs his head, looking away. “Then, I think – we are friends, maybe. You sometimes smile. But – you have to stay with me, because you my slave, so maybe not real friends. If I tell you, oh Nicke, you free! You leave me, go back to own land. So I –”

“You kept it a secret.” Nicke’s voice is steel.

“Yes.”

“You took a chance with your wolf cub – you gave Ovi a chance to run. You would not do the same for me?”

Sasha twists his head away, feeling hot tears burning behind his closed eyes. “I could survive losing Ovi,” he whispers, “Not so with you.”

There’s a long pause, and then he feels two fingers along the side of his jaw, gently turning his head back to face Nicke.

“Sasha.”

Nicke’s voice is gentler now, but Sasha still cannot look.

“ _Alskling,_ look at me.”

Reluctantly, Sasha forces his eyes open, risking only a quick look, but – oh. The ice has melted, now.

“I forgive you,” Nicke says, the absolution more sweet than any lover’s endearment Sasha has ever had whispered into his ear. “Never do anything like this again.”

“Never,” Sasha says, “I swear it. Never, Nicke.”

“Good.” Nicke pauses, touches those two fingers to Sasha’s mouth, just briefly. He’s frowning, just a little, and Sasha would be worried but Nicke said he forgives him, and Nicke never says something that isn’t so. “I think – no, not here. Come.”

They’re in Sasha’s room, and he’s on the bed, watching Nicke move gracefully around the room, trimming the lamp, laying another log on the fire, all things Sasha has seen him do a hundred times before but is somehow sweeter now, knowing that Nicke is here, doing them, because he is choosing to be.

And then Nicke straightens, rising from beside the fire to survey Sasha with his head a little on one side. Unconsciously, Sasha straightens.

“Alex,” Nicke says, quiet, and then, “Sasha. Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” Sasha says, instantly, because there are a lot of things he doesn’t understand, a lot of things he feels like he’s throwing his body at a wall made of spears until he’s pierced and broken over, but this thing has never been doubted, since the moment Nicke stood in the shadows of his room and handed him that knife, hilt first.

Nicke leans back against the wall, head tilted so he’s looking down at Sasha through heavy lidded eyes, and he spreads his legs a little, so there’s enough space for – Sasha swallows, heavy.

He knows – he’s seen it, slaves knelt by their masters, of course, and even free men, by their _mentoris_ , but he is a centurion. He was a centurion. He earned his rank with blood and sweat and blood and tears and he knows what this will mean, what people will say if they knew, but Nicke – this is Nicke, and he asked if Alex trusted him.

It’s only the barest breath before he drops, careful of his left leg, between Nicke’s feet. There’s a soft sound from above him, like a rush of air being released, and then Nicke’s hand comes to cradle his head, pressing it gently into a strong thigh as the other hand strokes over his shoulders. “Good,” Nicky says, quiet, “My good Sasha, _älskling_ , so good for me.”

Sasha shivers, feeling the words like a rush of cool air after summer’s hottest weight, sloughing off weeks and months of weight and grime. To his horror, he feels tears start to his eyes and he starts to flinch back in an abortive attempt to hide them.

But Nicke crouches in front of him, calloused thumbs running gently underneath Sasha’s eyes before he tugs, pulling Sasha’s head to rest in the crook of his neck. “It’s all right,” he murmurs, one hand tangling in the too-long hair at Sasha’s neck and pulling, just a little. “Easy, I have you. My beautiful Sasha, so strong for so long. Let it go, now, I have you.”

Ovi has a collar, a weighty thing Sasha had ordered from the local tanner, something that marks him and sets him apart from both the stray dogs that run in packs through the town and his wild brothers, and the next day as Sasha makes his slow way down to the garden, one hand on Nicke’s shoulder in their usual manner, for the first time he envies Ovi the certainty of his place.

Sasha used to know who he was – loyal son and soldier, powerful centurion and commander, but since his discharge, what has he done aside from saving Nicke? The small, day to day things, certainly – helping his cousin as much as he can, training and exercising Ovi and his leg, but these are all things he does. They are not him as being a soldier was _him_. And now – he has knelt for his servant, bowed his head almost near enough to kiss the feet of a man everyone in the world would say is his inferior. Worst, he can still conjure up the feeling of unbridled relief he had felt, laying all the weight off his shoulders onto Nicke’s broad ones. All his body and soul laid open for his servant to do with as he would, but instead of mocking or deriding him for it, Nicke had bowed his own head in acceptance and told Sasha he was good, that he was still strong – even stronger for this, his ultimate weakness.

A hand falls on his shoulder and Sasha startles, looking up to see Nicke looking at him, amused.

“Ovi has been waiting for you to throw that stick for five minutes,” he says. “Are you all right, Alex?”

“Yes, I – sorry, Ovi, yes.” Sasha stoops, picking up the stick Ovi has been patiently waiting for and hurling it as far as he can. Nicke called him Alex, not Sasha. Does this mean he regrets – whatever yesterday was? Does he want the distance of their early days back again? Perhaps he wishes Sasha had never been there in that arena, had never –

“Sasha,” Nicke’s voice is sharp, and his hand on Sasha’s shoulder changes to a hard clasp on the back of his neck. “What is wrong?”

“It – nothing.” Sasha tries for a smile, but from the way Nicke’s face furrows, he must not have done a good enough job. His heart is racing faster than it would for a battle, and he twists thankfully out of Nicke’s grip to bend down and grab the stick in one hand and Ovi’s collar in the other, fingers running distractedly along the engraving. His name, and Sergei’s estate name. Proof of ownership, that someone is looking after Ovi. Someone wants him.

There’s a susurration of air and then Nicke’s crouched in front of him, position a mirror of all those months ago when he had offered Sasha a knife and his service with it. This time, there’s nothing Sasha wouldn’t offer Nicke if he asked for it. A knife, his service, his heart on a platter. He bows his head instead, tongue too thick in his mouth to even attempt words.

“Are you worried about yesterday?” Nicke asks, using two fingers to raise Sasha’s chin.

“Yes,” Sasha manages, hoarse.

Nicke makes a thoughtful, humming noise, and then asks, “Because it seems to you to be lesser, to be on your knees for someone? Or because it was me?”

Sasha’s head comes up at that, protest on his lips, and Nicke smiles at him, touching his thumb briefly to Sasha’s cheek.

“Not that one, then. So, it is the first. Because you are my master, and I am your inferior.”

Sasha’s stomach twists. Nicke isn’t – Nicke shouldn’t say that about himself.

“Hush,” Nicke orders, gently. “I speak only of how the world sees it. To my eyes –” his hands leave Sasha’s face and trail down his shoulders, his forearms, to his hands. “All this power. All this beauty and strength just barely contained beneath your skin, and you give me the honour of the care of it? Sasha, my Sasha, to have the whole of you beneath my hands, kneeling for me, gifting me your obedience? It is the farthest thing from weakness that I can conceive. If you wish to stop, for your own sake, no sign or word of this will ever cross my lips again. But if it is only that you fear what the _world_ would say – I would have you _, mitt hjärta_ , for as long as you will give yourself to me.”

Sasha draws in a deep, shuddering breath, and lets his head fall forward, helplessly, onto Nicke’s shoulder. Nicke’s hand comes up, rubbing one strong hand up and down his spine. “You may speak now, if there is anything you would say,” Nicke says in a murmur.

There are plenty of things Sasha would like to say, but what comes out is –

“I want collar, please. I want be yours.”

___

Sasha wakes to the feeling of fingers stroking through the hair at the nape of his neck, just above the thin strip of leather Nicke had produced last night. One of Nicke’s fingers slips underneath it; tugs idly. Sasha only barely suppresses a shiver, murmuring, “Feels good.”

The fingers pause and then resume their slow sweep. “Good,” Nicke says, an undercurrent of warmth in his voice that really does make Sasha shiver with the banked promise of it, “You should feel good.”

“Nicke,” Sasha groans, making a move to rise, but Nicke’s hand slides down his neck to his back, pressing firmly. Obedient, Sasha goes boneless beneath the touch.

“Good.” Nicke says again. “Just like this, yes. You did too much yesterday for your leg, I think. I will rub it for you, and then we will have something to eat, and then we discuss this mission.”

At the reminder of all that transpired the night before, Sasha begins to tense again, but Nicke tugs sharply at his collar.

“You are _not_ to think of it until I give you leave. Understood?”

Reflexively, Sasha murmurs, “Yes, Nicke,” and his body, which seems to be already primed to obey Nicke without conscious thought or input from Sasha, has already relaxed again into the bed, ready for whatever Nicke wishes to do with it.

What he wishes is, apparently, to work every muscle of Sasha’s body into watery porridge, broad hands firm on muscles knotted with pain and years of army life, thumbs digging into scar tissue and pressing just on the far side of too much before the muscle gives under the sure hands of someone who is operating with absolute certainty that his desires will be obeyed.

It is later, Sasha in a languid pile on a cushion at Nicke’s feet, eyes closed and opening his mouth for the occasional bites of fig or cheese or wine that Nicke feeds him, that Nicke says, deliberate. “We must think what course of action is best.”

Sasha hums, head feeling at once too light and too heavy to take in what Nicke is saying. Action is the farthest thing from his mind right now – he is far more preoccupied wondering if he should follow through on the sudden desire to kiss off the drop of wine lingering at the corner of Nicke’s mouth.

“Sasha,” Nicke says, and his voice is amused. “Alex. Are you listening?”

“Да,” Sasha responds, staring at Nicke’s mouth. “You say, need to do actions.”

“Ah,” Nicke reaches down and tangles a hand in Sasha’s hair, using it to tilt Sasha’s head up, which is unfortunate, since that just gets his mouth closer to Nicke’s mouth, which – Sasha wets his lips. He still feels like he’s face up in a meadow somewhere, sun warm on his face and only the sounds of nearby small wood creatures to disturb him, with a full stomach and just the promise of a good rain later in the evening. His wound is paining him not at all and there’s a hand at the nape of his neck and the owner of the hand will tell him if he’s needed elsewhere and until then, he can stay in this meadow and simply drift.

Before he slips away entirely, he hears a voice, very close to his ear, swearing gently as hands begin to maneuver him somewhere, but the hands are likewise gentle, so he simply allows himself to be carried. The rest can be worried about later.

___

“Any sign?” Nicke asks, dropping the brace of coneys next to the fire and scrubbing a hand over Ovi’s neck. The wolf, not Sasha, somewhat to the human Ovi’s disappointment. They had argued over whether or not to bring him, as Nicke had pointed out that they had no way of knowing how long they would be gone and if they would be able to procure enough food for the two of them, much less a still growing wolf cub, but Sasha had overruled this reasoning by saying that surely, them being gone for longer was an argument for bringing him, as otherwise he might forget them entirely.

Nicke had looked heaven-ward, as though praying for patience, but had given in. And, after all, Ovi turned out to be an invaluable asset, more than hauling his own weight in the matter of hunting.

“Not yet,” Sasha replies, adding another pile of brush to the fire. There were rumours that the eagle had been seen in one of the northernmost tribes, as recently as a sennight ago, but careful questioning of the outlying farms had yielded nothing. “Maybe they just not want to talk to big strange man. Maybe beautiful Nicke will have better luck.”

Nicke scoffs, pulling his belt-knife from its sheath and making the first cut near the base of the coney’s neck preparatory to skinning it. Ovi watches avidly, too well trained to pounce on the fresh meat, but dripping saliva at the thought nevertheless. For his part, Sasha leans back onto his hands, enjoying – not the act itself, but the quick competence of Nicke’s hands as they worked.

“I can feel you watching,” Nicke says, not lifting his head.

Sasha grins, tongue through his missing teeth, not bothering to deny it. “Is nice, you making food, Ovi with us, it not raining. You so good at work.”

“You could help instead of just staring at me worse than Ovi.” Nicke tosses a few entrails into the fire, saving the liver and heart for Ovi. “Go get some water, at least, and some sage. I saw some by river.”

Sasha heaves himself to his feet, bowing in Nicke’s direction before ambling towards the river, their one pot in hand.

“Up for a bout?” Nicke asks, when Sasha comes back with the water. Sasha looks at Nicke, eyebrows raised. Nicke is bloodied up to the elbow, neat pieces of coney speared on slender apple branches and set over the fire.

“Beard too pretty to get blood in.” Sasha says, prim.

Nicke’s eyes lift sky-ward. “I will wash. Not like you not used to blood in your beard, Centurion.”

Sasha drags a hand over his beard, enjoying the fullness of it beneath his palm. “Not true. Centurion, need to be very Roman. No showing joy in battle, no smile when happy, no beard. Only be perfect soldier, only for glory of Rome.” Sasha gives himself a little shake; no sense in dwelling on a past he cannot change when he has such an interesting near future at hand. “You wash, not get blood in beautiful beard, then I kick your arse.”

As Nicke comes back from the river, arms and hair dripping, Sasha spares a moment – despite his words of only a moment ago – to miss the blood. Since that first day in the arena he’s seen Nicklas bloodied and breathing hard but victorious in one conflict or another only a handful of times, but it never fails to make his own blood sing in response.

Nicklas is solidly built, all heavy shoulders and competent hands, and even leaving aside the way his very eyes can stop a man dead at twenty paces, he has a way of simply melting out of any hands that seek to impede his way that Sasha finds deeply attractive even as he does is level best to get his hands around the other’s neck and bear him to the ground.

They are of a height, barring an inch or two, and nearly equally matched. Ovi, from his place by the fire, watches them with his head on his paws, well used by now to their sparring. Circling one another, Nicke says, “Have you thought,” and closes with Sasha in a rush, landing a solid blow to Sasha’s ribs, “of what we will do after we find this thing. If we find this thing.”

Sasha uses the momentum of Nicke’s blow to drop to his good knee and catch Nicke’s leg, giving a heave strong enough to take Nicke off his feet. “Not think, no. Cherry promise reward. You think he not give?”

“I think,” Nicklas says thoughtfully from where he’s rolled over on top of Sasha and pinned one thick forearm across Sasha’s throat, an inexorable force, “he is not used to be being told no. I think he will try to take me, by deceit if openness will not serve.”

There are beginning to be dark spots in front of Sasha’s eyes, and he grunts assent as he brings up both legs, hooking them around Nicke’s neck and pushing until his breathing is clear again. “I not let him.” He rasps, rolling to his feet and eyeing Nicklas warily.

Nicke shifts his weight from the heel of his foot to the ball of it and then back again, head tilted consideringly. “Of course not. But when men such as he are angry, they will take their anger out on those around them.”

Sasha understands immediately, feinting left before making a rush towards Nicke. “Andre. Thomas – Michael, the others.”

“Yes.” Nicke side-steps the rush, bringing an elbow down sharply on Sasha’s back. “I would not leave even a man I hated to the Tribune’s tender mercies.”

“You want I kill him?” Sasha asks, snapping his head up into Nicke’s chin quickly enough that he cannot pull back in time. “Is easy, he not even see me coming.”

From his position on the ground underneath Sasha, Nicke shakes his head, tapping out. “If we kill him, his slaves will die with him, on suspicion of his murder.”

“He is old man,” Sasha points out, giving Nicklas a hand up, “Not so surprising he die.”

“Maybe.” Nicke brushes an absent thumb across Sasha’s cheek in thanks before shaking himself. “We can think about it later, once we have the eagle, yes? Come; food, and then if you wish I will put you down before we sleep.”

Sasha agrees with alacrity, bones already beginning to melt at the prospect of an hour on his knees for Nicke. He lets Nicke feed both him and Ovi alternately, already sunken so far into that blue-tinted fog that he can rouse himself only to answer any direct questions Nicke puts to him. The past fortnight has given them ample opportunity to indulge themselves without the fear of Sergei or Sassticca bursting in upon them as they did so, and extended...practice...has freed Sasha entirely from any lingering unease he may have had at the effect his erstwhile slave had upon him. He goes easily to his knees these days, enjoying both the simple times when putting him on his knees was all Nicke does and the more complicated ones – such as when Nicke had pulled a coil of soft rope from one of the pony’s packs and proceeded to knot it around Sasha with gentle inexorability. Sasha had floated for hours after that session. It had been fully day when they had begun, and when he had stirred at last it was to find his head in Nicke’s lap with starlight above him and his limbs free. They continued their quest, certainly, but he thinks neither of them grudge the chance to be free and to freely interact.

This night, Nicke doesn’t fetch the rope, and neither does he set his hands to Sasha’s wrists as he sometimes will, holding him down strong enough that Sasha will often have faint bruises the next sunrise. Instead he places Sasha’s hands in the small of his back, deliberate, arms pulled just high enough that he can feel the tension without incurring any serious injury. He presses a hand to the limbs, a clear ‘stay’, before maneuvering Sasha onto his stomach and spending the next eternity working his hands over every inch of Sasha’s skin, from the very top of his head to each individual toe, occasionally trying Sasha’s obedience by replacing fingers with his mouth in some pattern known only to himself. When he has finished with one side Nicke turns Sasha over, pressing Sasha’s wrists to the ground above his head, and going over Sasha’s front with the same infuriatingly slow thoroughness. Sasha is straining in his small clothes, the only article Nicke allowed him to keep before beginning this euphoric torture, and without being labeled a braggart, Sasha can truly state that his is no small weapon and thus impossible that Nicke should miss it, and yet it remains the one place on his body Nicke does not touch. His hands, blunt and sure, smooth over the scars on Sasha’s thigh and hip, over and over, pressing into the scarred tissue and soothing the old pains with open mouthed kisses, but no matter how much Sasha may whimper and plead, that self-satisfied mouth never moves where Sasha would most have it.

“Hush, _alskling._ You wish to be good for me, do you not?”

“Yes.” Sasha gasps, wrists straining to stay where Nicke has placed them, held there by the force of Nicke’s wish despite the lack of concrete bindings. “Yes, Nicke, please, I want be good, for you, да, please, Nicke.”

“Good, that is good. You know I will take care of you, yes?”

Not daring to speak lest all that come out be more pleading, Sasha jerks his head in an assent, sweat-soaked hair falling into his eyes before Nicke smooths it back against his head, smiling enough to reveal teeth that are just slightly pointed, like Ovi’s – like a predator.

“And you will stay so still for me,” Nicke says, nearly crooning now, like a wet-nurse seeking to reassure her charge that all will yet be well. “So still, my Sasha, so good for me as I take care of you.”

“Nicke –” Sasha cuts off with a shout as Nicke’s hand is finally, _finally_ , where Sasha needs it, but the touch is light, light enough that it’s all he can do to keep his hips still as Nicke ordered them instead of chasing up into that grip.

Over and over Nicke touches him, always too light for any true relief, until Sasha is sobbing outright and begging loudly enough that were any other people within twenty leagues they would surely have thought he was being flayed alive, before Nicke bends over him at last, flaxen hair curling in the humid air of their tent, and touches that sinful mouth to Sasha’s need. Only a breath, and still through his smallclothes, and yet enough at last to have Sasha crying out one last time as his hips jerk upward with his completion. Nicke sits back on his heels, watching with no small satisfaction as Sasha lays splayed before him, completely and utterly spent.

___

 

Perhaps it is only a coincidence and no trick of the Fates, but the following day they have their first hint of where the eagle might be – a man with the distinctive bearing of an ex-soldier and a beard grown fully over any sign of a callus where a chin strap may have rubbed. He is leading a cow when he spies them and hesitates.

“A fine day.” Sasha greets.

“It’s clear enough,” the man agrees, wary.

They have, in the past weeks, realised it is a far easier way of doing things to ask straight out for what they search for rather than skirting delicately around the issue. If someone is ill inclined to tell them something, well, they then at least know there is something further to pursue.

“We seek a trophy, one of Rome’s eagles.” Sasha holds out his hands, gesturing, before letting one fall to rest on Ovi’s head. “So big, less if wings are gone.”

“Why should I tell you anything?” the man demands, chin lifted and hand tightening on the cow’s lead.

“So, sa.” Sasha tilts his head a little to one side. “You have no great love for Rome, perhaps. Fair, да, it is fair. Cause enough that many people hate Rome. For our part –” he glances at Nicklas, watching silently from astride his horse. “There is something precious to me being held as ransom against this thing.”

The man’s eyes follow his own, and that hard gaze softens. “So,” he agrees. “My name is Braden.”

“Nicklas,” Nicke says, swinging down off Meira, “And one with more brawn than sense is Alex. The more handsome one is Ovi.”

“We have better part of a deer,” Sasha says, “More than enough for two, if you would.”

“I must take this foolish one home,” Braden says, but he hesitates again. “Perhaps it may be that you might come with me. I am only hired man to the Braccai, but they are a kindly people, and belike they will have more to tell of where you might find this eagle of Rome.”

The village headwoman is at first reluctant to speak to them of anything, despite the repeated offer of the deer flank and, too, the repetition of why they seek it. After Braden has a quiet word in her ear, though, she tells them that the thing they seek is further into the north. That after the ninth legion marched and disappeared into the mists, there came word that the Novantae had a new war-god, stolen from the Red Crests after they had been slaughtered.

It is more of a trail than they have had since they began this quest, and after thanking her, they both accepted Braden’s offer of his bothie and curled together before the fire on their blankets, Nicke’s fingers resting just gently on the hollow at Sasha’s throat.

Over Nicke’s shoulder, Sasha can see Braden watching, and he smiles at him with all his (remaining) teeth. The man may have given them information and offered them a place to sleep, but Sasha will not be shamed for accepting whatever comforts – or discomforts – Nicke wishes to give him.

Braden looks uneasy for a moment, head turning away, but only a breath later he is looking again. Before Sasha can take real insult, though, he is apologising, voice low.

“I had – one such as you, once.” He says, gruff. “He was a beautiful boy, and I loved him as my own soul, but his father – could not pay his debts. I had been marched to Isca Silurum at that time, and before word could even reach me of what was in the offing, he was sold to some old letch and I left heartbroken and a deserter.” His hand goes, almost absently, to the rough place at his neck. By their sides, Ovi whines, and Nicke whispers a command. Ovi rises and trots over to Braden, nuzzling into his hands.

Braden smiles, hands going automatically to stroke the huge grey sides.

“My heart is heavy for you,” Nicke says, soft, and his hand tightens on Sasha’s throat. “Truly, such men have much to answer for.”

“Truly.” Braden echoes, and all three of them fall silent.

Sasha falls asleep to the comforting weight of Nicke’s hand against his throat and a heavy thigh slotted between his legs, and for this night he does not grudge the warmth of Ovi at his back to Braden’s comfort.

The next morning they take affectionate farewell of Braden and a grateful one of the headwoman, and make their way north in search of the eagle.

____

To tell of all their travels and the adventures that befell them would be the work of more pages than readers have interest, but none of the three reached their destination without adding one or two scars to their collection.

Not all the dangers came from fellow men – there was one night a bear that would have caught them unawares were it not for Ovi’s warning, and on more than one occasion other wolves threatened their small encampment. These last encounters made both Sasha and Nicklas very grave for worry that Ovi would feel the call of his wilder brothers and leave them for a wolf pack, but their fears were for naught – Ovi defended them against his own kin as stoutly as he had against any of the men who wished them harm, and after the wolves had been driven off they both fell upon him with plenty of praise and affection.

They came after another sennight’s hard riding to the tribe the headwoman had told them of, and here for the first time they forbear to inquire directly of the eagle. Instead, Nicke bade Sasha wait with Ovi, saying plainly – and no doubt truly – that with his fair hair and less blatant carriage, he would be far less suspicious than Sasha himself would.

In this wise did Nicklas scout out the small cluster of bothies and crudely made huts. It was, in the end, something of a disappointment when Nicke came back, a small bundle clutched against his chest.

Eager, Sasha pulls apart the wrappings and sees the unmistakable glint of a Roman eagle.

“It was there for take?” He asks, running a finger over a carved ridge. “No fight, no guard?”

Nicke shrugs from his position on the ground, wrestling with Ovi. “There was a hut with smoke coming from it, but small. Not cooking fire or warmth fire. Obvious it was ceremonial – the place for their gods. When they were all in the longhouse, I went and took it from its place. No one saw I was there.”

Sasha can only stare at it, gaze a little blank. “All this time. All this way. So little.”

“Little, yes,” Nicke agrees. “But for this – maybe we get freedom for six others.”

Sasha blinks, gaze pulled away from the standard and back to Nicke. “You mean to use it to bargain, then.”

“Was it not always the plan?” Nicke’s eyebrows rise, eyes a cold spring green rather than the warm summer Sasha has come to know.

“Of course, of course, I’m always want get people away from Cherry. He is biggest mудак in Britain, probably. Only, I not know – maybe he look at us and say, you crazy, whole thing is just trick so I can steal beautiful Nicke, give me eagle and enjoy being best dead Centurion in Britain.”

“He might say that,” Nicke acknowledges, thoughtful, giving Ovi one last long stroke before standing and brushing himself off. “But I think he will _not_ say this if he is very – _very_ – afraid.”

Unfortunately, this casual display of competence rouses Sasha’s blood to the point he feels he will burn forever if he cannot have Nicklas’ mouth on his own at this very minute, and so any further talk halts until several hours later. Sasha is splayed, spread-eagled (a term which makes him, even with the significant distraction of Nicke’s hands on him, chuckle aloud), with Nicke atop him, sitting heavily in the small of Sasha’s back.

“Once we free them, what we do then?” Sasha asks, muffled by his disinclination to raise his head from where it’s pressed into the blanket.

“We could stay in Calleva, if you wish.” One of Nicke’s hands traces absent patterns over Sasha’s ribs. “Or we use the money to buy land of our own. This assuming we will stay together.”

Sasha tries to twist upright at that, a jolt of fear running through him. “What you mean, assume? You not going to leave me, Nicke, you _promise_ -”

“Peace, peace!” Nicke presses him back into the ground, shifting his weight to settle more firmly atop Sasha. “No, of course, we will stay together, if you want.”

“Of course I want,” Sasha grumbles, but he relaxes at Nicke’s assurance.

“Good. So, then, we can buy land and perhaps, if it is enough, we might offer the others to come with us.”

“Andre come for sure.” Sasha remembers well how hard it had been to pry him apart from Nicke, even when he had been supposed to stay away. “I not know the others so well.”

Nicke hums, thoughtful. “Mike and Tom I think will come. Devante - he is Cherry’s bodyguard - will be glad of the chance to be away from people that can think only to call him ‘exotic’. John and Madison I do not know well, but as T.J. will come with us, I think it likely they will as well. He has them on a short leash.”

“Oh?” Sasha asks, muzzily, and then, more alert. “Oh!” He frowns, trying to picture the slight man he remembers treating two large litter-bearers as Nicke does him.

Nicke laughs at him. “The other way, my Sasha. But he is a winsome thing, and I think it pleases John to please him.”

“Does it please Nicklas to please me?” Sasha asks, slyly, and for the second time that night all further planning is suspended as Nicke shows him exactly how much he is pleased.

____

 

“So,” Nicke says, leaning back easily against the solid wooden door of the Tribune’s office. “You have two choices. Either you do as we say and you keep your eagle, your honour, and your life, or – you can refuse. We disappear with the eagle and shortly after it is discovered where you truly served – or rather, did not serve. We know it was not with the Egyptian legion as you claimed. After this, it will come one day you do not expect that you will simply not wake one morning.”

Cherry swallows against the blade at his throat, fear flickering in his eyes before he manages, contemptuous, “You allow your slave to speak to you like this?”

Sasha feels himself growling, pressing the blade infinitesimally closer and watching as a thin bead of blood blooms against the unhealthy wax of his skin and rolls slowly towards his toga. “He _not_ my slave.”

“Easy, Sasha,” Nicke says mildly, “The Tribune will see our way soon enough.” He looks Cherry up and down for another moment, thoughtful, and then says, “The little finger of his right hand, I think.”

Without slackening his grip on the knife at Cherry’s throat, Sasha pulls another knife free from his belt and holds it poised above the Tribune’s hand. The flicker of fear from earlier springs full to life in Cherry’s eyes and he freezes like a fox treed by hounds.

“Wait,” he says, sounding desperate, “wait, I will hear your demands.”

Sasha doesn’t move, looking instead to Nicke, who after a thoughtful pause, gives him a nod. Somewhat reluctantly, Sasha lowers the knife again, keeping one hand clapped firmly around the Tribune’s wrist in case he thinks to offer any violence.

“Our terms are these,” Nicklas says. “The full and free release of every slave in your service and the reward you promised Centurion Aleksander Ovechkin for the return of the eagle – enough to purchase a good sized portion of lands and also to recompense your former slaves for at least two years of their labour. Lastly your silence on the matter of how they came to be freed. Else –” he smiles, and it is not a kind thing, and yet Sasha feels himself thrill to it, entire body straining towards Nicke. “Else you will find yourself not only short a finger but short your life as well.”

Coming from another man – even from Sasha himself Sasha thinks that the Tribune might have hesitated, but there can be no room for any hesitation in Nicke’s flat green gaze nor in the calm, level tone in which he dictates the next course of action. The Tribune can only gasp like a fish caught and left for dead on the shore and reach a trembling hand for his stylus.

_____

 

The land Sergei finds for them is only two days hard travel from Calleva, and only a half day’s journey from Isca Dumnoniorum. After taking their leave of Tribune Cherry, Sasha leaves it to Nicke to tell the others that they now are free. He recognises them all, though he knows Andre and T.J. the best. John, Thomas, Michael, and Madison had been the tribune’s litter-bearers, and Devante his bodyguard. Sasha had only once made the error of wondering aloud why Cherry had only men in his service. Nicklas’ reaction had brought the reason into clarity with sickening focus.

The journey to their new home affords Sasha opportunity to learn more about them – and more about who they are outside of another’s control. They had, of course, offered for them to return home or start afresh somewhere else, with plentiful coins in their purse, but to a man they had all asked instead to come with Nicklas and Sasha.

“At least for a while,” John had said, glancing at Madison and then to T.J. “It will be better, I think, for us to be with others that we know.”

Since Andre had forborne to even leave Nicke’s side since the second they had told him he was free, Sasha privately thought this was an excellent idea.

Thomas and Michael (“Tom, or Willy, and Mike or Latts.” “Why everyone need so many names?” “Right, Sasha-Alex-Ovi-Sanya-Aleksander.”) seemed perfectly content to be anywhere at all so long as they were not required to be separated from one another, and Devante seemed agreeable to whatever the rest of them wished.

None of them seemed at all inclined to talk about their lives before, instead cheerfully bantering with one other about skills in laying a fire or the best way to plant wheat, and neither Sasha nor Nicke had pressed. With an additional seven people (and Ovi, of course), Sasha misses the chance to kneel for Nicke, but on the other hand he is kept busy wrestling with Tom and Mike and having Devante teach him a more specialized form of grappling and playing four on four with a ball Madison unearthed from somewhere. One night, though, he enters the tent to see Nicke seated on the small three legged stool they keep for when Sasha’s leg is paining him too much to sit on the ground, and on his knees in front of him is Andre, face pressed to the inside of Nicke’s thigh.

Sasha halts, stumbling to a stop just inside the entrance. Andre doesn’t stir, but Nicke’s eyes flick up to meet his, calm. For a terrible, dizzying moment, Sasha feels as though he’s falling down an open well with no end to it, and then Nicke shifts, just a little, making space, and nods to his feet. Light-headed with relief – Nicke has not replaced him, there is still space for him at his feet, and whatever Andre is doing there, Sasha is still _his_.

One of Nicke’s hands comes to rest on his head, a benediction. Sasha turns his head, just a little, and sees that Andre is actually asleep, mouth open against Nicke’s thigh. “He was sold,” Nicke says, very soft, “By his father, to get out of debt.”

Sasha understands almost at once, turning startled eyes upward. “Braden.”

Nicke nods. “I think so. It is a common enough thing, but with this and the way he refuses to speak of any of it – it is in my heart that they were companions.”

“When I –” Sasha licks his lips. “When I first come in, I think –”

Nicke’s hand on his head tightens, pulling Sasha’s head back gently but inexorably even as he leans down, pressing his mouth firmly to Sasha’s in such a way that leaves no doubt that his place is secured. “I want to help Andre, as long as he needs it, but once we send word to Braden, it is not long that he will need me, I think.”

Dazed, already beginning to slip into the soft space under the combination of Nicke’s hand on his neck and the pressure in his knees, Sasha nods. Yes, they’ll help Andre and Willy and Latts and the others, and they’ll find Braden, and all of them and Ovi will arrive at their farm tomorrow, probably, and they will build a house, and – but all of that is for tomorrow. For now, all he has to do is sink more fully into his Nicke and float.

_______

The familiar walls of Isca Dumnoniorum rise above him and Sasha checks Lea with a gentle hand on the reins, leaning forward on the pommel for a moment. He is alone save for Lea and Lai and Ovi, no cohort at his back, and there is snow layering the ground instead of dust. He is yet too far to be challenged by the sentries, and his eyes follow the well-worn path leading through the small settlement that still lingers under shadow of the fort. When he had told Nicke his thought, hesitant over it for a full sennight previous, Nicklas had only rolled his eyes to heaven in his old familiar manner and told Sasha to be sure and take his heavier cloak and enough provision for three. He would have come with him had Sasha asked, but he felt there was a kind of – symmetry, that he would make this journey alone. A small sacrifice to Dzewa to bless his steps and five hours ride later and he nudges Lea forward up the familiar path. He swings off, rapping his knuckles against one of the lintels of a small hut.

A woman’s voice comes from within, growing stronger as she comes nearer “...and if this is you again, Luca, I have _told_ you drinking it all at once will only – oh!”

Sasha smiles. “Hello, Tola.”

“Alex!” She drops the pitcher she was holding, flinging herself forward and into his arms. Laughing, he drops Lea and Lai’s reins and gathers her close, inhaling the spicy, herbal scent of her that always meant safety. She pulls back after only a moment, eyes bright. “Come in, come in – Cwen will be so glad to see you! She asks often when ‘her Sasha’ will be back.”

“I will be glad I see her, yes,” Sasha says, hitching the horses to one of the exposed poles and clicking his tongue for Ovi to follow him in. “Also I bring her dog.”

Tola glances down at Ovi and says flatly, “That is a wolf, Aleksander.”

“Wolf, dog, eh. His name Ovi.”

“Of course it is.” Tola bends and picks up the pitcher, but she strokes a hand over Ovi’s rough ears on the way, so Sasha is satisfied. “Of course we are happy to see you – and in such good health! – but Alex, what do you here?”

“Ah. Yes.” Sasha sits down awkwardly on the small stool by the fire, one hand rubbing absently at his thigh. His old wound always pains him more in the colder months, and Tola clearly notices, frowning a little and retrieving something from a small alcove, pouring the tonic into a cup and handing it to him. He drinks, recognising all too clearly the sickly-sweet of the pain relief tea she had made for him often when he was just injured. “I come to ask you if you want come live with me.”

He can see her flickering through several responses, but it is good to see she must still trust him enough to hold back her first reaction and wait for an explanation. “I – we have farm, not far from here. Ten of us, now, many acres. I remember you say – you not like living her, so close to where you lose him, and that fort is not good place for Cwen to grow up. So I think – maybe you can come live with us.”

Something in his own face or tone must give him away on the last word, for her face softens. “Us, Alex?”

“да. I – all of us, but there is – I found someone. He is.” He swallows, running his fingers over the edge of the cup instead of looking at her. “He is a gift from the old ones, Tola. He is very – good to me.”

“Ah.” There’s a breath of movement and her fingers are underneath his chin, tipping his head up so she can study him before she nods, slowly. “Yes, you love him very much. And he loves you?”

“He loves me.” Sasha says simply, skin feeling alight with the knowledge that her fingers are only a scant few inches away from the simple leather collar that encircles his neck, concealed beneath his tunic.

“That is well.” She turns away, bending over the fire and adding another bundle of brush before turning back to him. “You can promise all these others – they are good, also? They will not do anything to me or to Cwen?”

“I would swear it on my life.”

“So? So. We will come. Cwen is – you are right, I do not like this place for her. And I have missed the farm.” Tola flashes a smile at him. “I notice you bring two horses. Always confident, my Alex.”

“Always,” He agrees, laughing. “But see! I am right! Now all can ride.”

“And if need be, we can always put Cwen astride your giant wolf,” Tola says mockingly, and Sasha laughs again. He has missed her, with her dry wit and fearlessness. It will feel right, to have her and Cwen here with them.

Before they leave the next day (after Sasha has greeted Cwen with many hugs and kisses all over her face and stomach and tossed her into the air a few dozen times) he rides up to the fort. When the man on guard hails him, Sasha pushes off his hood, tilting his head up. “Has it been so long that you do not know your old Centurion, Dima?”

“Sasha!” Protocol gone to the four winds, Dimitry clasps Sasha close before holding him an arms length apart and looking him up and down. “Praise be the gods! It has been so long since we heard of you we thought perhaps someone had finally taken fatal offence to your ugly face.”

“Enough,” Sasha protests, laughing, “I will have you know my man is very well pleased with my face.”

“So it is like that, is it?” Dima pauses a moment before nodding and clapping Sasha on the shoulder. “Well, he will discover soon enough it is your personality that is the worst of you.”

Sasha groans, but he is still smiling. He has missed this – missed his brothers and speaking Magyar and the easiness of interacting with one you have known your whole life. “Is Zhenya still here?”

“Still here?” Dima raises an eyebrow. “You had not heard, then.”

“What? Has something happened? No – Dima – tell me –”

“Peace, peace! He is well! I did not mean to frighten you. In fact, he is – well. See for yourself.” Dima nods towards the quartermaster’s building, and Sasha follows his gaze to see Zhenya, in the armour Sasha remembers well save for one new addition – a transverse helm under one arm.

“Centurion?” He asks, only a little disbelieving.

Dima’s smile widens. “Worse. Commander.”

Sasha’s mouth drops open. Here Zhenya clearly spots them, for his arms spread wide and he crows, “Sashenka!”

“Gods. Is it too late to go back to Calleva?” Sasha asks, but he is smiling also, pulling Zhenya in for another bone-crushing embrace.

The next few minutes are a torrent of conversation as he hears of the fort and the men and the settlement and he tells them in turn of all that has happened to him – save a few details – and gives them directions to the farm so that on their next free day they might right that way and visit. He takes himself away with some reluctance, but Tola and Cwen are waiting, and they must make the farm before night falls.

The journey home is pleasantness itself. He and Tola converse as easily as they ever did, and Cwen is thrilled with “her dog”, insisting she be let down to romp ahead in the snow with him until she grows weary and Sasha swings her back up to Lai’s broad back.

Even with the necessarily laggard pace, they still arrive at the crest of the hill overlooking the farm just as the sun begins to set. Sasha can see Tom and Mike in the far fields, and Devante mending the near fences, John looking on and no doubt offering unwanted and unheeded advice. T.J., doubtless, will be in the house itself, cursing the stove John and Madison put together. Braden and Andre are with the cows in the far pastures. Always, always, though, Sasha’s eyes are looking for broad shoulders and fair hair and sharp green eyes. He answers Cwen’s questions as they ride into the yard, patient, craning his neck to see if perhaps Nicke is in with the goats, but their pen contains nothing but the five goats they now own and the one cat that has decided she is the goats’ protector and hisses whenever anyone but Nicke comes to milk them.

And then, as the setting sun sends its rays across the snow-whitened slopes, a figure steps out of the doorway of the small bothy Sasha had built for the two of them after there had been a unanimous decision that they were far too maudlin and mawkish to share the main house. Nicke is looking towards the fields at first, but then Ovi barks sharply, bounding forward towards him, and Nicke looks their way, and as his eyes meet Sasha’s, a rare smile lights not only his eyes but also pulls the corners of his mouth upward, and heedless of his guests’ comfort or Ovi prancing madly about underneath their feet, he flings himself out of the saddle. Two strides bring him even with Nicke, who laughs breathlessly in his ear, one hand curling over the back of Sasha’s neck and the other brushing down Sasha’s chest, first two fingers tapping just gently at Sasha’s collar before curling in his cloak. “Miss me?” He asks, eyes dancing.

“I did,” Sasha confirms.

“And now you are home?”

“Now, I am my Nicke’s, body and soul. Like old faithful hound.”

“Never, my Sasha.” Blunt tipped fingers stroke once more over Sasha’s collar. “Remember? You are my wolf.”


End file.
